The problem 🐶True Review ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ solves

In the wake of Google censoring over 100,000 reviews from Robinhood’s app during the GME event, the online community has made it clear that people demand ownership of their VOICE and their DATA.

🐶 True Review is a censorship-resistant review platform. It lets people OWN their reviews, and share them without fear of censorship. We used LOTS of awesome tech from our ETHDenver sponsors this year, integrating a spectrum of awesome tools in interesting ways.

Reviews belong to the people, so let’s build it that way.

Challenges we ran into

User-owned data is tough.

We considered 3 layers of decentralized data in the ecosystem:

1. Base Layer (Blockchain/Ethereum/etc.) - storing data directly on a fully decentralized blockchain is the purest approach, but can be costly, slow, and difficult to scale
2. Middle Layer (Filecoin/etc.) - a mix of both worlds (1 & 2), blockchain backed monetization powers a more trusted and permanent storage marketplace, must more scalable than directly on Ethereum, but still has atomic transaction costs
3. p2p Community (IPFS/Pinata/Ceramic/Textile/TheGraph/etc.) - a community driven ecosystem, mostly leveraging core IPFS technology to provide a network of peers that help store and share data in a more fluid nature

Each layer has it's pros and cons for specific use cases. For a review platform:

• People paying a cost in order to leave a review isn't realistic
• People want to interoperate with a variety of wallets, blockchain technology, and social identity verifications
• People want to own their data, and decide where it is stored

We chose thought these sponsor integrations worked best to accomplish our goals for 🐶 True Review:

• People own their data by backing rich text/image/video reviews with IDX & Ceramic (all stored on IPFS of course!)
• Real companies are verified through The State of Colorado (also backed by IDX/Ceramic/IPFS)
• People can verify their identity through their Colorado Digital ID (or similar) for optional bot & spam protection
• People can link their reviews and identity to a decentralized namespace with Unstoppable Domains
• To make things fun and practical, why not add some gamification using NEAR Protocol NFT rewards and prizes!?

We learned a LOT about these technologies and are excited to see next steps in the coming months!